Greedy Goblin

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Guild prizes and fail money

We are currently on 1300 guild achievements and I want more, in the hope that it will shake up social guilds.

Legendaries: You need to have the legendary weapon and be honored with the guild. The prize is 5000G, after we get the achievement, you show me your item and your guild rep, proving it was your doing, and the money is yours. I cannot nominate anyone to "shadowmourne wielder", cannot force anyone to help you or even to not compete with you. You must get them on your own. But I pay you a nice prize! Sulfuras is taken!

Obviously no one in his right mind would class change for 1000G, new rerollers are the target audience of these offers.

The farm raids don't go the way they should, because of failures and AFK. The rules always allowed to charge these, but I was too lenient. No more Mr nice Draenei! The following behaviors will be fined for 300G and everyone who fails pays it. If 5 wipes in stupid, 5 pays, so good players get rich. Remember that "low DPS" or "low HPS" are not among the fails, so if you see the boss first time, it's completely OK to focus on not dying in stupid and do below-tank DPS. You'll get better and the early bosses are really tolerant.

General failures:

AFK, BRB: You are expected to be present in the 1:30 time between breaks when you choose to come. There is no attendance, if you can't come, it's OK. But I will not tolerate any more BRBs. You are expected to press yes or no for every ready check (no when you miss buff, have question, or still running in). Go to toilet before raid or in the break, switch off your phone (Aunt Marlene can wait 1:30 to tell you how much she loves her favorite nephew), eat decent food before raid instead of ordering pizza that arrives in the middle of the bossfight and ask Mum when will be dinner. I don't want more excuses. If you are "brb" for 3 mins, you are wasting 3*9 = 27 minutes of other human beings. Stop it! If you are AFK, you'll pay or you go.

"BRB relog", "need to get addon": fix your WoW before the raid. If you are "away" on readycheck, it doesn't help you.

DC, "I got lag": Clean up your computer, get a decent ISP, suspend that animal porn download! If you wipe us by DC or lag, that's still a fail.

Pulling aggro. No excuses.

Another 300G if you blame the tank's threat for you pulling aggro. The tank's job is to survive and not to hold the boss against your 30K pyroblast crit 0.2 sec after he pulled with his ranged weapon. I don't want to hear that excuse ever again! If the tank's threat really sucks, then every DD hold back, we hit enrage and replace tank. But if you pulled aggro from the worst tank ever, you failed!

Breaking CC on trash (if it leads to wipe).

Forgetting your CC on trash (if it leads to wipe).

Using combat res unless the RL told you so, or the boss is below 20%

Releasing when resser ran out (Maloriak typically), or after he is in the instance (Valiona). Being dead is a good time for some AFK, waiting while you run back is waste of time.

Not accepting res instantly. Being dead is not a good time for 10 mins AFK.

Asking what the boss do. You shall be prepared. Of course you can ask specific questions (who tanks what, who is the collapsion point and so on)

Halfus specific failures:

attacking the wrong drake (if we wipe because of healer OOM)

dying in the fireball (you can jump away even in stun)

tanking something away from the mark (hard to AoE when dragons and Halfus are all over the place)

Valiona specific failures:

dying in "idiot phase" (don't get there at all)

dying in Valiona breath (both in P1 and engulf before landing)

not running in for blackout (unless blackout target can bypass it with iceblock)

not being stacked up in P2 for meteorite

being stacked up in P2 with engulfing magic

Magmaw specific failures:

being hit by parasites (even if you are melee, kite the damn thing)

not being stacked up during parasite kite, separating parasites (being thrown by pillar is a good way to get separated)

chain fail (150-150 for both chainers, if you don't want to chain, don't come to Magmaw as melee or tank)

Omnotron specific failures:

becoming ooze food (even if it wasn't your ooze)

tanking Arcanotron in blue while he cast 2 bolts and kill someone

electrical discharge others

hitting shielded boss (your pet counts)

Maloriak specific failures:

not stacking up for fire

stacking up for fire with debuff

stacking up for ice, AoE-ing others

instant braking ice before victim is healed up, killing him

interrupt release aberrations when you shouldn't forcing us to run out

not interrupting something you should forcing us to run out or wipe

offtank not running out when there are only 6 aberrations in first green (next green there will be 12)

Atramedes specific failures:

getting full sound for any reason, except if gonger did not use gong in time

Conclave specific failures:

being on wrong platform

killing something before RL tells "kill"

being kicked away by Rohash

being frozen by Nezir

pulling aggro on lashers and not bringing them instantly to tank

tanking lashers in green

If you think it's too harsh and people should be allowed to stand in the fire, find yourself a raid leader who tolerates it or make your own "feets of flames" session! I want farmbosses cleared in one or maximum 2 days, not wiping at Vali for hours because some people just can't stack on the raidmarked person.

Good news: you can't pay more than 3x300G! (because if you fail 3 times, you are out). Not because I hate you, but because you just waste your own money and our time. Maybe the boss needs some thinking instead of banging your head to the wall (as you don't understand one of its core abilities), maybe you are just tired. Next raid, or even next boss after the break you can come!

32 comments:

Kelindria
said...

Since you just wrote "getting full sound for any reason", you might want to add to atramedes:1)not interrupting searing flames 2)not running when targeted with sonic breath

I'm not sure exactly how you handle sonic breath when he is landed but if you use a single direction for running, going the wrong direction often causes wipes not just single deaths from high sound. The fault would simply be on the sonic breath targeted person. Also running sonic breath in the air phase in the middle of the room is worthy of a fine.

I haven't been playing wow for a while for a variety of reasons, one of which is that its a problem at work when I come in with bruises from banging my head on the keyboard during raids. I'd be back in a hearbeat if I could raid in that atmosphere. I really like the fact that the specific things that get you fined are spelled out clearly. I would hope that all fines and kicks are done without animosity or lasting problems. Sounds like raiding heaven.

Gonger is a specific task, if you fail in it, we place someone else there. It's not fair to pick someone and fine him after failing the task he did not want. If everyone fails at the gong, we failed and Atra will fly happily this week (not used to happen)

I think you'll implicitly create an "elite clique" this way; something you were afraid of but said were theoretically impossible.It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. I wouldn't be surprised if you end up with too few players willing to join the farmraids.

I'm surprised that some of these rules include waiting for the raid leader's signal before f.ex. combat ressing. You raid without voice communication to force people into thinking for themselves, and then you make another rule that contradicts that philosophy?

I really cant agree with calling knockbacks on Rohash fails. I dont know if you actually have been on the platform but as range you sometimes cannot see the boss due to cyclones and thus cannot avoid it if you dont use voice communication. That comes from a 5/12 HC 10 man raid team that changes people who fail pretty fast, but we never considered this particular thing as fail.

I don't feel this is a sustainable method of leading raids. There are too many ambiguities available for "fail" and you will spend a large portion of your time parsing through combat logs to figure out who to blame for the wipe. This will be a much bigger time waster.

Also, BRB/AFK is inevitable occasionally. What would you propose someone do that has a doorbell ring unexpectedly during raid, a pet/child knock over a vase, spilling a drink on their keyboard, etc... all of those things (besides the drink I suppose) are beyond the average person's control.

@Treeston: I've seen Arca being tanked in the swirl until the swirl disappeared.

@Alouette: the alternative is hoping that the failer will get lucky. No thanks! Also: I'm not saying that BRB makes you "evil". I just say you wasted my time. Just think: if your pipes brake, it's not your fault, can happen with anyone. You still have to pay your neighbor if you flooded his apartment (from your insurance if you had one)

@Blockfire: There is still no attendance rule. You raid only when you want to.

Not punishing the "Gonger" but punishing for failing Chains on Magmaw? Punishing both people if one fails? If I am a perfect melee I still can get my penalty (I do not care if it's much or anything, if I do my job, I can't get penalty).

Arcanatron WILL cast up to 3 (!) Bolts in the Blue Zone. It WILL come through if you don't assign kickers. You can not avoid this, just have pure luck (or minimize the chance it will happen). The Tank is NOT to blame for this, you have to watch if he got 1-2 Hits or like 15 before the boss gets pulled out. Otherwise the Tank can not match your expectations.

So if I get full sound because the "Gonger" fails, it's my fault? Should I just Gong to not get full sound but steal a Gong from the raid? Highley unlikely you wan't that, maybe reconsider wording here.

Ooze food if it's not yours? So the rogue following the ooze should run away if someone else might fail? A healer must run away from someone elses ooze instead of healing properly just because that guy can't open his eyes? That's just crazy, it's the persons responsibility to run away, or else you will get AMS+IBF-DKs that survive that while wiping all melees that didn't expect that. Reconsider that one.

Anyone can have a DC. While I clearly would say here: If it does happen often, you get high penalty, so one might keep this rule. But on the other hand, you can't always blame an ISP or any AddOn, there may be DCs that you simply can not avoid.

Is it the offtanks job to see if kickers suck? Hey they failed, so hey may announce it. But if you take this one, you may even take it to the next level: His healer could have seen that as well. Or anyone else with his eyes open (at least the kickers that should have an eye on it). Don't draw the line on an offtank. Yes hey MAY reset the boss for you, but he should not get penalty if he doesn't.

One additional thing I'd like to add, though that's totally my personal opinion: I drink very much during raids, so 90 mins is pretty much for breaks, thus I often get ressed or we just have some 5 min breaks where everyone who needs it just gets to the toilet quickly, while those who don't go in and ress. Just give everyone the chance to call for "toilet break after next try please" and you sign it, giving anyone the time (not allowing it for a few wipes or anything like that).

Just some suggestions that I found very handy in our raids that may help you to design those rules fair for everyone.

If you cause damage to someone else it's not universally true you have to pay damages. Here typically you have to pay damage if you caused unjust damage intentionally or if you caused damage through negligence.

In your example if pipes break and damage someone else's property you don't have to pay those damages unless you broke the pipes on purpose or you were negligent with the pipes maintenance.

From my perspective as someone in the PUG new to raiding I think the failure list is a good idea as I know what to avoid. Perhaps you could expand this to include things we should do and the PUG customisations to the general tactics i.e. the things that you say in the chat before each fight. E.g. for Valiona/Theralion p2 melee stack on marker a, ranged on marker b. Then instead of having to repeat this before each fight, you can just check that we have read the guild raid page. This way each raider would have a clear understanding of what is expected of him for each role/fight.

This info is available online and through addons like boss tactics but the amount of text there is far too long and unwieldy to go through before each fight. Also some of the bosses have multiple general strategies. A concise summary of the fight with the PUG tactics would be a lot better as this could be quickly read to refresh your memory before the fight

Every raid leader sooner or later must enforce some kind of discipline in the raid. Afkers and unprepared people can destroy the raid. It doesn't matter whether you call themselves casual or HC raider. Perhaps you will lose some people and your team will become smaller. But your raiding experience will be much better.

I actually think such a list can be a good idea and an incentive for players to watch what they are doing.Yet you have to be careful to think of every, and I mean every bloody single fucking theoretical possible event that might happen in any possible raidsetup, or you'll start discussing special cases over and over again.

Example.:"Halfus specific failures:

* attacking the wrong drake (if we wipe because of healer OOM)"I am a shadowpriest, I routinely dot up every single enemy target in that encounter that ist up (Halfus plus any drakes who are up). So yes i am attacking the wrong drake (even with mindflay to refresh SWP, so anyone can see I'm doing something "wrong".If we now have Healers who are new to raiding and/or the encounter and they blow their mana too quickly ... well we wipe because of healer oom, yet the healer oom is not my fault, is it?But under that rule I would be fined, when in reality I did not play bad or do something wrong, but played the encounter perfectly.

Another thing is on Omnotron:"hitting shielded boss (your pet counts)"But if you have a mage who constantly spellsteals arcanotrons shield buff-thingy, thus increasing his own dps, thus raiddps, doing some damage to that shield will not be a strain on your raid. Same goes for Toxitrons shield where you can profit from the naturedamage to your attacks. Of Course you shuld talk with your raid or at least your healers about that, before hitting Toxitrons shiled and doting yourself up to increase dmg done on the Boss.

So my point is, be careful with wording and consider all the tiny details, even the fact, that your raid might understand the boss mechanics and is able and willing to communicat with one another to bring it down more quckly ;)

"Your concept was always interesting but these rules really are more of a raiding guild. I would expect a lot less attendance in the future for you"

I disagree. I would like to know exactly whats expected of me, and more importantly, know that others are held to a standard of performance. If they keep making the same mistakes, they are replaced. This concept would motivate me to raid, not the other way around.

I would encourage Gevlon to give us some numbers or an idea of how many raiders have been wanting to raid previous to this post, and we'll see what the results are.

P.S. the thing that makes this different from a raiding guild is that these rules should allow anyone a chance to raid and pass or fail based on performance. Not necessarily the same people each week.

Regarding "get a better ISP", there are areas in places where there is only one choice for your ISP. I live in one of them due to being in a somewhat remote area. The nearest gas station is several miles away for example, so is the nearest grocery. And in any case, lag/server to client issues happen and they're no one's fault, or perhaps their modem or router coughed. That kind of thing happens with technology. Have you never in all your time playing been hit by a random DC for no reason? It seems unreasonable to punish people for things out of their control. Would you punish people on the first night of a new patch, the most notorious time for server instability?

Accepting resses instantly is also not always the best idea. Its entirely possible for the druid to fire off a res and then have a something take up the space they were standing in seconds later, since combat resses place you at the druid's feet as of where they cast the spell, not where they are when you accept the res. Examples are the Dragon Twins, the phase 2 purple flame circles on the ground or the Deep Breaths, or perhaps a raid wide AOE is going to go out at a bad time. This can be alleviated somewhat with the Rebirth glyph, but that's still wasted healer mana to heal up the person who ressed into fire instead of waiting 10 seconds.

As for turning your phone off, real life situations take priority. If something happens outside of your control and you need to answer that phone call because something awful and unexpected happened to friends/family you're going to answer that phone call. I can't imagine even a world first guildie saying to his father "Sorry mum is in the emergency room, but I've got to raid, gotta keep up you know". Is it an extreme edge case? Yes, but it can happen.

I understand the reasoning behind these rules and am not trying to give disrespect for the raid a pass (believe me on this, my raid this past week was disrupted by an asshat in a cape who I would slap IRL) and that there is no way to verify if someone is AFKing for a serious reason or they're just trying to dodge trash, or if a DC is a legitimate problem with your equipment or server to client data stream or again someone is trying to trash dodge, but you really need to apply some more thought to some of the situations you've labeled as failures. It seems like you're trying to label everything that doesn't promote machine like raiding as M&S behavior, when its not machines you're playing with, its people.

•The behavioral rules of the Ganking project work and perfectly capable to keep M&S out.•There is no need for "job-like" approach for the raiding. It can be perfectly no-obligation and casual•There is no need for dedicated leaders if the goals are properly set and feedback can be provided by the system and peers"

http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2010/06/pug.html

In response to those:

1. Your behavioural rules do keep the M&S out. Check.

2. You're identifying a need to make raiding job-like, with KPIs for success. Fail.

3. Farm-raid has a dedicated leader (i.e. you) and is setting rules to follow (i.e. this post, as opposed to any other guild-organised raid without such rules). Feedback is being presented in the form of rules and penalties, rather than from peers (by excluding such people from raid group). Fail.

So far, the points that you're trying to prove are far from being achieved.

I would like to hear you revisit the stated goals of the PuG and assess for yourself how you think you're going, and possibly realign yourself with the spirit of the project again.

The quicker you take down each drake the easier it becomes to heal."And that is my point, If you decide to take down a total of two drakes, you need to bring down the HP Pool of Halfus plus two drakes. The quicker you do that, the better. If you have the opprtunity to bring down halfus and any active drakes via multidoting, without sacrificing significant dps on the first target, then by all means you should do so.

"By not spending every GCD you can on the appropriate target, you lengthen the time any one single drake is up and increase healing needed" not true, its as simple as that. If the overall healthpool of the enemies delets faster, you put less strain on the healers overall.Especially, when the first target won't die much faster if you do not use multidot (and cleave etc.) bur just singletarget focus every drake down.

If you kill every drake with singletarget teh overall fight duration will go up, this will mean the raid will take more damage form halfus and the behemoth and thus put more strain on the healers and their mana.

Of course I am not talking about retarded shit like trying to kill the drakes only with mindsear or consecration or the like. :D

1 small thing. If you have problems with interupting on Arcanotron just ask your shamans to drop grounding totems on CD instead of any other wind totem. Buff are ussually not worth of damage saved by grounding. From time to time whole 45s duration expires without absorbing but sometimes more people kick first bolt and everyone have CD for second and in that time grounding is blessing.

Ah... I forgot something to mention: I do understand the concept of punishment. However you may want to also add some bonuses in specific cases such as Atramedes, being the Gonger, as they have an increased risk of failing.

So it is not allowed to use the Poison Soaked Shell of Toxitron to push dps and same at Power Conversion of Arcanotron spellstealing it as a mage (toxitron dot of course needs selfheal / cd to overcome the dot dmg)? (if it is only prohibit by failing on using this "misbehaviour" I think it would be more fitting due to use all options of this encounter)

Just some technical questions since I look forward taking Ðesolate more serious in march.